In order to put a spin on this blog post, I’m not going to do a “I’m Going To Be Single This Valentine’s Day, Please Don’t Feel Sorry For Me” post. 

We have both been there AND done that. It’s boring. It’s tiring. If you’re single on Valentine’s Day, you should be viewing it as a freaking GIFT. You don’t have to spend a horrific amount of money on flowers or chocolates or stuffed bears or lingerie or whatever the hell it is you couples buy for each other on the holiday. 

I do, however, want to talk about Tall Girl Dating.

AHA! GOTCHA!

Bet you didn’t think this was going to be a Tall Girl blog post, huh? SUCKER.

I have dabbled in the Tall Girl lore, rules, pet peeves, etc. here before, and while discussing pros and cons of tall and short men and degrading everyone who has ever used a sport as a pickup line is terribly amusing, I want to talk a little more about dating myths surrounding tall girls. 

As a Tall Girl, I feel like I am an expert. The same way I’m an expert at stealing laundry detergent from frat houses and hitting on musicians.

I’ve lived it, so, as the kids say, I be knowin’. 

Anyway, I have four myths about Tall Girls I want to touch on and bust it wide open for discussion. So, here we go.

Myth 1: Big F(et)ish, Small Pond

Right off the bat here, I feel like I need to put out a disclaimer. I know I said these are general Tall Girl dating myths, but I can only really speak about my experiences and my reactions as a woman in this particular community. 

And speaking of reactions, what is WITH you guys who insist on fetishizing tall girls? 

Fetishizing? You know, a verb meaning, and I’m paraphrasing here, “to reduce someone like Emma, who has unparalleled charm, razor-sharp wit, a crackin’ personality and an electric mind, to one of her singular, physical features”?

This happens to most everyone at some point. People can fetishize your weight, your height, your race, your ethnicity, your sexuality, your hair color, and the list goes on and on and on. So this isn’t unique to tall girls, but, like I said, I’m doing me right now. 

There are certain buzzwords used when people hit on Tall Girls that I’m assuming we are supposed to be flattered by. The big ones (no pun intended), for example: “Amazon,” “goddess,” and  “giantess.”

NOTE: When I post a picture on Instagram and some of my gal pals comment “OMG goddess” or “Amazon queen” or whatever, this is not an issue. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I feel powerful and sexy and strong and confident and I love it to the moon and back.

But if I’m out at a bar (post-Covid, obvs) and a guy uses any of the aforementioned words to describe me, I am going to have a whole herd of cows. 

Here is my problem.

The feeling that you get when someone is reducing ALL of your fabulousness to one physical quality is not a nice one. And when it happens over and over and OVER again, it almost gets worse and worse each time. 

I might be out here alone on my island having this opinion, but it makes me feel ookie when this happens. And ookiness is not a good feeling to have when you are trying to get your dating groove on. 

So, the bottom line?

I’m not trying to kink-shame anyone, but stop fetishizing the height. Just call me beautiful and move on with your life. 

Myth 2: All Tall, All the Time 

A huge myth: tall girls only go after tall boys. 

I have many things to say about this topic, but I’m not sure how to organize them properly, so I’m going to lay them out and you can do with them what you want.

• Tall guys, generally, as a population, seem to prefer short girls. Short girls usually prefer tall guys. In case you’re bad at basic math, let me simplify:

Short girls liking tall guys + tall guys preferring short girls = not leaving many tall guys for the rest of us.

• I know it’s shocking, but there IS a coalition of tall girls who don’t exclusively go after tall guys. Personally, I love a Short King. And if you’re short, secure in yourself AND oozing confidence? *chef’s kiss* 
• Tall guys, in my personal and professional experience, tend to be lazier when it comes to dating, ESPECIALLY if they’re considered “conventionally” attractive. I said it. Someone had to. And honestly, I would be lazy too if girls just sort of fell into my lap everywhere I turned. 

I will say, I don’t know if I’ve ever met a girl who didn’t describe her “type” without using the word “tall.”

(Sidebar here: you guys ever watch the UK’s Love Island show? Where all they ever seem to talk about is their type? “Oh, he’s my type on paper. That’s a bit o’ me, innit?” Blah, blah, blah. The girls, when asked, ALWAYS say “Oh, my type is…tall, dark and handsome.” YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE, OKAY?)

 I understand how this might give short men a complex. I really, really do. One time, I came across a guy on Tinder and his bio said “I’m only into short, sporty girls.”

Like, okay, dang. I’ll just see myself out, then. 

That was, like, three years ago. Clearly it stuck with me. I won’t say it gave me a complex, but a lifetime of people being quite vocal about preferring people who look NOTHING like you might. Just some food for thought. 

Myth 3: That Don’t Impress Me Much

I’ve written about this before, so I’m just going to lightly touch on it again. Caress it, if you will. No point in beating a dead horse. 

Stop assuming that Tall Girls always want to talk about our height, or that we always need bolstering about it.

No, it’s not that we’re “ashamed” or “self-conscious” about it. We just don’t want to talk about it. It’s not a valid “in.”

If you hit on me and you use my height in your chat-up line, I’m done. I’m over it. There’s no coming back from that one. It doesn’t ALWAYS need to be referenced. I mean, really. 

I’ve found that, either in-person pre-Covid OR on dating apps online, guys seem to think it needs to be mentioned. I had my height in my Tinder bio for a long time, but it didn’t help alleviate the “how tall are you?” messages. 

That, arguably, is JUST as annoying as them seeing the photos on my profile, deducing that I am, in fact, taller than your average small-town journalist, and messaging me, “Wow, you’re tall!”

You know that Progressive commercial series with Dr. Rick, teaching people how NOT to be like their parents, and there’s that “group outing” commercial? They’re all at the hardware store or something, and the guy with blue hair walks by and Dr. Rick says, “We all see it, we all see it…”?

Well, sometimes that’s what I feel like. Okay, yes. I am tall. Okay, yes, I am REALLY tall. MUST we comment on it? Even if you’re complimenting me for it, I get annoyed, because it just DOESN’T need to be said. 

(It’s important that I have since changed my approach to my height on dating apps. I decided to simply put a vague line in my bio saying, “I don’t think height is a personality trait,” and I’m hoping that weeds out the losers. I’m not, however, feeling optimistic.)

Myth 4: Man, I Feel Like a Woman

(Oh, no, I’m turning into Shania Twain.)

As we are all painfully aware, there seems to be some stigma in our culture that, as far as relationships go, the tall one needs to be the man, and the short one needs to be the woman. 

That’s considered “normal.” People don’t really have much to say when they see a couple that’s “normal.” If there’s a relationship in which the girl is taller, it’s seen as outside the realm of “normalcy.” 

It shouldn’t be considered “brave” for a tall girl to date someone shorter than her, and it shouldn’t imply anything on the boy’s part. They should just be allowed to exist. Being tall is sexy. Being short is sexy. It’s all very sexy, okay?

And can we stop arguing the fact that it’s “weird” for the girl to lean down if the couple is making out? It’s not rocket science, it’s just biology. The taller of the two will have to make it work. It’s considered sOoOoOoO sExY when this happens and the tall one is a guy, right? Can we just settle down, please? I’ll start bringing a stepladder along on dates, if that would make everyone feel better. 

Stop projecting your discomfort with anything outside society’s view of “normal” onto me. If neither me nor the Short King I’m with have an issue, then let us be. Damn. 

If those four myths read as an entire blog post of me ranting and raving, then, SURPRISE! You are very perceptive. This fills my quota of complaining when it comes to my height, so I probably won’t dive back into this for a while, but I always feel like if there’s an opportunity for me to bring it up, I won’t miss it!

With Valentine’s Day’s arrival in the midst of a pandemic, I’m not sure what y’all are doing. Staying boo’d up with your boo? Hanging with your parents? Your dog?

Or, if you’re me, probably watching a sappy movie and crying about it? 

As Crosby, Stills and Nash said, “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.” So, if that’s yourself, then work on self love this Valentine’s Day. 

Your Romantically-Challenged-and Vertically-Blessed Servant,